Universal's Terrifier Maze Does One Thing Halloween Horror Nights Has Never Done Before

The most startling surprise of the past decade of horror cinema has been the ascension of the "Terrifier" series. Sure, writer/director Damien Leone's depraved, unapologetically gory, and transgressive slasher series may have begun as a gift to fringe genre movie fans, who immediately knew that there was something going on with these movies. But one look at the box office charts (not to mention the sheer number of t-shirts, tattoos, and other assorted merchandise) confirms one thing: the cruel supernatural murderer Art the Clown has officially crossed into the mainstream. The only thing more shocking than watching these movies is imagining regular people (and not, you know, weird horror freaks like you and me, dear reader) actually sitting down to watch them.

And when any horror series achieves a certain level of success, there is one inevitability: Universal Studios' Halloween Horror Nights event will come calling. Anyone who has accused the long-running theme park Halloween event — which celebrates its 34th year in 2025 — of going soft by sometimes embracing lighter fare and building haunted maze experiences around movies like "Beetlejuice"and "Ghostbusters" will eat their words when they experience the "Terrifier" house at the Universal Orlando Resort. They may even promptly puke those words straight up.

It would've been an act of creative dishonesty for any haunt featuring the "Terrifier" name to be anything less than repulsive and morally corrosive. Halloween Horror Nights has stepped up to the task and then some. I cannot even describe most of the imagery and moments in this walkthrough attraction without getting a stern warning from my boss, a red flag from Google, and a wiretap on my phone from law enforcement who are wondering if I need to be on some kind of list. In fact, the pictures included with this story are the only three we were able to take during our entire tour of the house that we're allowed to show you while also following our editorial guidelines for violent imagery. Seriously.

But all of talk of gore and goo comes back around this: the maze provides a Halloween Horror Nights first by letting the visitor choose one of two endings, and one of them is ... Well, it's more than a little wet.

Sprays of water and mist are nothing new to haunted house attractions. When I used to work in a (much smaller, much cheaper) haunt back in the day, a little sponge and bowl of water in a dark room with the right context would send attendees fleeing from a room, screaming at the top of their lungs. And while there are plenty of opportunities to get a little bit damp throughout Halloween Horror Nights 34's "Terrifier" maze, it's the grand finale that asks if you want to simulate the only way any proper close encounter with Art the Clown could go.

Consider this the most minor of minor spoilers: at one point, you'll be asked to choose one road in a forking path. One will send you back into the park nice and dry. The other one will not. I'll leave you, a person who probably knows a thing or two about the three "Terrifier" movies, to supply the additional context here.

The "choose your own ending" approach, combined with the "who is brave enough to take the right turn instead of the left?" challenge, is a killer hook, and one that builds immediate tension before you even enter the attraction. Like Leone's film's themselves, part of the fun of these endlessly vicious movies is the playground chatter, to borrow a phrase. To watch one of the "Terrifier" movies feels like a dare because there's no way what you've heard is true. It's only appropriate that the Halloween Horror Nights maze replicates that queasy tension.

Perhaps the most surprising thing about the "Terrifier" maze is that Universal's Halloween Horror Nights team has designed something that's just as foul and unrelenting as the films, and has filled every corner with actors up to the challenge of bringing Art the Clown (so memorably performed by David Howard Thornton in all three movies) to life in this new context. We were told before entering the maze that this attraction features more fake corpses than any other maze in Horror Nights history. When you exit, you'll not only believe that, but realize that this is a feat that will be tough to top. I consider myself a seasoned horror fan and an experienced haunted house attraction aficionado, but nearly every room in the "Terrifier" maze left my jaw on the floor with its rapidly escalating depravity. Your eyeballs will need a thousand kitten videos to recover. Your nose may need some help too (because yes, this is a haunted house that you absolutely can smell).

Some Halloween Horror Nights mazes can be accused of being "book report" summaries of the movie or show they're based on, recapping the plot beat by beat. "Terrifier" wisely avoids the Greatest Hits Collection set-up, utilizing some familiar imagery to otherwise launch you into something that feels more like a companion to the films than a retelling. Even the most hardcore fan will find plenty to be surprised and shocked by, long before they reach the fork in the road and make their choice about entering Art the Clown's personal theme park splash zone. Whether you stumble through the exit and into the night dry or a bit drenched, one thing is for certain: Universal pulled no punches here. It says "Terrifier" on the tin, and there's no false advertising here.

(Editorial note: /Film experienced Halloween Horror Nights 34 as invited guests of the Universal Orlando Resort as part of a media event.)